Waymo's CEO Argues Camera-Only Self-Driving Cars Can't Match Human Safety

Key Takeaways

• Waymo’s co-CEO argues camera-only cars can match humans but struggle to deliver superhuman safety.
• The company uses cameras, lidar, and radar for full autonomy, citing the need for redundancy and reliability.
• Waymo has logged 220 million rider-only miles, while Tesla reports 380,000 driverless miles.
• Camera-only systems hit a safety ceiling before reaching full autonomy, requiring lidar and radar for superhuman safety.
• Autonomy is an exponential ladder of nines, where each additional nine of reliability requires roughly ten times more work than the last.

What Are the Limitations of Camera-Only Self-Driving Cars?

Humans drive using two cameras mounted in their heads and motors in their arms and legs. That doesn’t mean cameras alone are enough to make a car fully autonomous. Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov says camera-only systems hit a safety ceiling long before they reach the level needed to operate without anyone behind the wheel.

Dolgov made the comments during a talk at Y Combinator’s Startup School. He never mentioned Tesla by name, but the target was obvious. Tesla has built its autonomous-driving strategy around cameras while dismissing lidar and, more recently, radar and ultrasonic sensors.

How Does Waymo’s Approach to Autonomy Differ from Tesla’s?

Waymo uses cameras, lidar, and radar together. Cameras provide high-resolution color information. Lidar maps the three-dimensional world and radar measures velocity directly. The latter two can also continue working in darkness, glare, fog, rain, and snow.

Dolgov says those sensors are not simply backups for one another. Each uses a separate processing system before the data is fused into a more complete picture of the environment.

What Is the Importance of Redundancy in Autonomous Systems?

That kind of redundancy becomes increasingly important as reliability improves. Dolgov described autonomy as an “exponential ladder of nines,” where each additional nine of reliability requires roughly ten times more work than the last.

How Does Waymo’s Approach to Autonomy Impact Safety?

A system that works 99% of the time might look impressive in a demonstration. In the real world, that same system would produce hundreds if not thousands of crashes if it were implemented at scale.

What Are the Implications of Waymo’s Argument for the Future of Autonomous Driving?

Tesla may still prove its critics wrong. Sometimes, a simpler solution is the best one. But Waymo’s argument is becoming harder to ignore. The technology that produces the best early demo may not be the technology capable of delivering truly driverless safety. At this point, only time will tell.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is Waymo’s approach to autonomous driving?

Waymo uses cameras, lidar, and radar together to provide a complete picture of the environment and ensure redundancy and reliability.

Q: Why does Waymo believe camera-only systems are not enough for full autonomy?

Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov argues that camera-only systems hit a safety ceiling before reaching the level needed to operate without anyone behind the wheel.

Q: How does Waymo’s approach to autonomy compare to Tesla’s?

Waymo uses a combination of cameras, lidar, and radar, while Tesla has built its autonomous-driving strategy around cameras, dismissing lidar and radar.